Raśl Castro Puts the Ball in the U.S. Court
February 03, 2015
Cuba's Conditions for Bilateral Relations
Raúl Castro Puts the Ball in the U.S. Court
by DAVID URRA
Journalists normally come to governmental summits with pen and scissors in hand, because summarizing the extended remarks of Heads of State is a pretty difficult and tedious job. Leaders sometimes repeat things they’ve said before, or make remarks that don’t particularly bear reporting, or concentrate on specific problems that are not generally all that interesting.
The latest CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Summit ought to have been different though. Everyone was waiting for Cuba’s delegation, led by its president, Raúl Castro, in anticipation of his first public remarks since he and President Obama announced a prisoner exchange and the beginnings of negotiations to re-establish relations between Cuba and the United States.
Ever since that bombshell, a flood of stories have emerged on both sides of the Straits, filled with speculation about events both real and imagined, and as one would expect, sketching the parameters for public opinion about what might come next.
The media banquet has included tireless observations about how and when Cuba ought to do this, that, or the other, and has included musings about every possible scenario, even including a blatant provocation by a pseudo-artist whose aim was to humiliate the Cuban government by accusing it of intolerance.
Miami rapidly rushed in, with those who either opposed the opening, or else those who didn’t want to miss the boat, and after more than half a century of doing everything possible to destabilize Cuba’s society and government, suddenly its residents began to promote themselves as supervisors over the “changes” in Cuba, in accordance with the White House script.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/03/raul-castro-puts-the-ball-in-the-u-s-court/
